Bedding foundations or so-called box spring assemblies generally comprise a wooden base, an upper grid and a plurality of coil or bent wire spring modules extending between the wire grid and the wooden base. The coil or bent wire modules are welded or otherwise secured to an upper wire grid and stapled or otherwise secured to the base. As thus manufactured, these box spring assemblies are bulky. Shipping such assemblies to a manufacturer for application of padding and covering may be costly. In order to reduce shipping space requirements, it is customary to compress the box spring assemblies to reduce their individual thicknesses and, when compressed, to tie them in their compressed state. This involves providing presses and ties which are expensive, and the extra operations of pressing and tying the assemblies. At the delivery end, the manufacturer must cut and discard the ties before applying the covering. These additional material and handling costs increase the end cost of box spring assemblies
U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,064 discloses a nestably stackable bedding foundation assembly which overcomes the manufacturing and shipping problems characteristic of the more traditional coil or modular box springs or bedding foundations. The bedding foundation assembly of U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,064 comprises a rectangular border wire and transversely spaced, parallel and longitudinally extending support wires parallel to the border wire sides and having ends connected to the border wire ends. These support wires are generally corrugated along their lengths, having peaks and valleys with the peaks being generally co-planar with the plane defined by the border wire and the valleys being displaced beneath and intermediate of the peaks. Longitudinally spaced, parallel and transversely extending upper connector wires, parallel to the border wire ends, are connected along their lengths to the peaks of the support wires. The valleys of the support wires are stapled to the wooden base upon assembly. The longitudinal voids between the peaks of the support wires are of a greater dimension than the valleys of the support wires. This configuration enables one nestably stackable bedding foundation assembly to be nestably stacked atop a second assembly since the support wire valleys of the first assembly may enter into the voids between the peaks of the support wires of the second assembly. Such a nestably stacked arrangement results in a total height dimension which is less than the sum of the individual assembly height dimensions.
One advantage of the bedding foundation assembly of U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,064 is that it enables relatively inexpensive bedding foundation wire cores to be tightly compacted and shipped in a minimum of space to an assembly destination, thereby reducing the ultimate cost of the bedding foundation to the assembler and ultimately to the customer. The bedding foundation of U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,064 also may be rapidly loaded by a manufacturer for transportation to the destination of assembly without the need for compressing and tying box spring assemblies. The same is true of the bedding foundation disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,805,780.
In certain applications, one may desire a box spring or bedding foundation having corner guards which provide the foundation a smooth appearance at the corners. Bedding foundations having such corner guards are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,493,887 and 6,687,929. One drawback to these corner guards is that they are not secured to the upper border wire of the foundation. Therefore, the corner guards may partially or totally separate from the remainder of the foundation and lessen the appearance of the foundation.
Accordingly, there is a need for a bedding foundation which has corner guards secured to an upper border of the foundation.
There is further a need for a process for manufacturing a foundation having corner guards which may be shipped with its components in stacks and assembled at its destination.